These days, we likely don’t see film as a key exporter of pop music.  But in 1977, in a world where pop, R&B, soft rock, funk, and disco were all competing for attention, the x-factor of the year came from film soundtracks and film scores.  Six of the 100 songs on the Billboard year-end list were written for a film, providing us with a warm-up for 1978, where Saturday Night Fever and Grease would inundate pop music with six of the top 20 songs of the year.

The list was surprisingly diverse.  Barbra Streisand hit number one with “Evergreen,” her theme song for the 1976 version of A Star Is Born.  Meanwhile, Marvin Hamilsch wrote “Nobody Does It Better” for Carly Simon, which became a hit when the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me was released in July 1977.  Over in the disco/R&B side of the charts, Rose Royce had their breakthrough this year with the Car Wash soundtrack, which included the disco jam title track and the R&B ballad “I Wanna Get Next To You.”  “Car Wash” was nominated for this list, but didn’t make the cut.  

But a surprising source of hits came from film scores.  It would likely never happen today, but in 1977, it was possible for film composers like Bernard Herrmann or Jerry Goldsmith to have a hit song that charted.  The previous year’s Best Picture winner, Rocky, spawned a hit song out of its triumphant “Gonna Fly Now” passage by Bill Conti.  While that song may be highly appropriate for someone wanting to scale the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, it wasn’t even close to the most recognizable film score that charted in 1977.

And now… A long time ago in a galaxy far, far- oh screw it, I’ve already parodied it twice, you all know what it-

“Main Title (Star Wars)” – John Williams & The London Symphony Orchestra

#10 peak (September 17, 1977)
#99 year-end, 17 weeks on chart

I’ve stated before that when I write these best and worst lists, my goal is to combine objective opinion with my own personal tastes.  While I do want to make sure I’m not leaving out the songs that will make people ask me “What were you thinking?” I want to shine a light on the songs that make me the happiest, and that I want everyone to know about (well, when writing the best lists).  And that brings me here.

You’ve probably noticed some surprise picks so far on this countdown.  None of the songs I previously listed are generally placed in most Internet critics’ Top Ten lists for 1977.  Plus, I already mentioned that Stevie Wonder didn’t make the cut for the best list, so there goes two “sure things.”  While most songs on this countdown are my personal favorites regardless of public opinion, there are two songs on this list, one now and one later, that are so giant in their reputation that they can’t possibly be ignored.  Star Wars and its opening theme is one of those songs.

Heck, while we’re on the topic, I don’t truly love Star Wars.  I like the movies, sure, but I’ve never truly become a fanatic like 99.9% of the American population.  My opinion of the Star Wars movies is as basic as can be: The first Star Wars from 1977 is a classic, the other two original trilogy movies are very good, The Phantom Menace and Attack Of The Clones suck, and Revenge Of the Sith and The Force Awakens are okay.  To this day, I still haven’t seen The Last Jedi or The Rise of Skywalker (or Solo, for that matter), and have no plans to.  I might check out The Mandalorian, but haven’t decided yet.  And just to anger the fandom even more, my favorite George Lucas film isn’t any of the Star Wars films.  That honor goes to American Graffiti, the way better version of Grease whose financial success made Star Wars possible.  But the Star Wars main title theme is the element of the entire franchise that I have to respect, even more than the lightsaber.  

Just listen to the opening.  I mean, I probably don’t have to make you listen.  You probably know the entire first minute of the song, the minute that appears for the credits of each and every Star Wars episode, by heart.  The opening A note is scary and shocking.  In a good way, though, not a “this song is unbearable” way.  As much as it differs from them, the main title to Star Wars comes stepped in the tradition of the “cast of thousands” historical and biblical epics of the 1950s and early 1960s: the movie you’re about to see is the biggest film of all time.  And the main riff in the song continues that tradition.  In 2005, the American Film Institute, the main purveyor of greatest film archives in America, ranked Star Wars as the greatest film score of all time.  Which in turn, makes this song the greatest movie theme of all time.  Obvious pick is obvious, but what else could it be?  Max Steiner’s grand and titanic “Tara” leitmotif from Gone With The Wind?  Steiner’s score is amazingly diverse, yes, but not as many people are as familiar with it as they are with John Williams and Star Wars.  And with the growing controversy regarding Gone With The Wind’s portrayal of African Americans, I think it’s safe to say “not anymore.”  Bernard Herrmann’s biting “The Murder” score from Psycho?  It’s probably the best tension-building leitmotif in film history, but it’s not one I would want to hear everyday like the Star Wars theme.  You don’t really want to hear those strings when you walk to your mailbox to get the mail.  Then there’s the most inarguable point: every second of the Star Wars main riff is great.  It’s powerful.  It’s commanding.  It’s majestic, and immediately makes it impossible to take your eyes off the screen as you read the opening crawl.  While Star Wars is among the most famous movies of all time, there is no element that is more attention-grabbing than John Williams’s opening theme.

And even with the remainder of the opening theme, Williams added so much to what can make the film score so powerful.  The strings in the bridge to the main leitmotif provides the element of romance and excitement, providing the basis that Star Wars is Luke Skywalker’s epic poem.  And even when the main title sequence ends and the crawl fades off into the distance, there is that brief descending element of wonder from the flutes, as the song foreshadows the advent of the Death Star, the light saber, and the TIE fighter.

With how much I’ve stated how the main title theme to Star Wars is great, it’s probably time to explain why this song is only at number six.  Well, aside from the obvious fact that it would likely be bizarre to put a film score theme, even one as great as Star Wars, in the top slot of a pop music countdown, there is one key fundamental problem with the track.  “Main Title (Star Wars),” the version of the score that charted and became eligible for this list, is over five minutes long.  You hear the legendary opening for the first 1:20 of the track, and then the song begins repeating its leitmotif in different keys.  Still impressive, yes, but the song as a whole begins to lose steam over its five minute runtime.  Obviously the Star Wars theme is made for a theater and not for a 45.  But “Main Title (Star Wars)” deserves its status as among the most legendary movie themes not just for the film it services, not just with how effective it is in setting the tone for said movie… but because this theme effectively changed the film score for decades to come.

I used to take a film score class in high school, so I’ll try to pull out things I haven’t thought about much for the last decade for this segment.  So here goes.  In Old Hollywood, the biggest films received lavish, extravagant full orchestra scores.  I already mentioned Gone With The Wind as a particularly notable example, but Westerns, Film Noirs, and especially Epics featured wall-to-wall orchestral backing that made each of these films sound bigger than they really were.  Huge ensembles, separate leitmotifs for characters and situations, and loud, monstrous endings were the order of the day.  Some of the later examples, particularly Elmer Bernstein’s score for The Ten Commandments and Miklos Rozsa’s numerous scores for biblical epics, especially Ben-Hur, paved the way for John Williams to etch his name in pop music lore 18 years later.  But then, suddenly, the film score fell to the wayside.  In the sixties, the collapse of both the historical epic and the traditional musical, coupled with the rise of new, experimental films by young directors, meant that the film score changed.  Film scores became increasingly influenced by pop music, and probably most crushingly, they became sparse and less prominent.  Watch movies from this time period like The Godfather and notice that outside of intense moments and changes in scene, the film score is absent.  It became a lost art.

Then, in the seventies, the orchestral film score slowly came back.  Composer Carmine Coppola got to play a bigger role on The Godfather Part II than he did on the original, and John Williams had his breakthrough with Jaws and its devastating two-note shark leitmotif.  Star Wars marked the occasion where the film score was back.  Its individual success regardless of it being incongruous with the musical trends of the seventies, coupled with the ginormous success of the film becoming the second biggest film of all time only behind Gone With The Wind, assured filmgoers that John Williams and the orchestral backing were here to stay.  Tons of films in the eighties, in all genres, rushed to duplicate the Star Wars film score and its success, with many of those films, including E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark being scored by Williams.  You just couldn’t topple the purveyor.  Star Wars wasn’t just a transcendent moment in film because of its influence on the current Hollywood scheme of blockbusters, sequels, and summer release dates, it was a transcendent moment for film scores.

But there was a reason for all this.  The Star Wars theme is so massive, and yet so catchy and melodic it had the ability to restart a revolution in the film industry.  And while I can’t say “Main Title (Star Wars)” as a whole is a song I would want to return to for an uninterrupted 5 minutes and 20 seconds, the main leitmotif stands true to its reputation as the greatest one minute in film score history, and John Williams’s greatest achievement in what is probably the greatest resume of film scores in Hollywood history.  It is, and always will be, the theme that restored freedom to the film galaxy.

UP NEXT: At #5, one of the most infamous music figures of the eighties releases an amazing song.

SOURCES

Hickman, Roger. Reel Music: Exploring 100 Years Of Film Music. New York City: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005. Print. Various dates September 2008-June 2009.

IMAGE SOURCES

Star Wars logo from Wikipedia

Scenes from Star Wars from USA Today and IMDb